The founder of a non-profit organization, in a brazen scheme allegedly defrauded parents of children abducted across international borders, including several Indian-American parents, who gave him thousands of dollars believing he had deep diplomatic channels and the support of U.S. Army Special Operations Force.
Peter Senese, 49, the founding director of I CARE Foundation, was arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y., and charged March 31, with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Senese described his organization as a “self-funded non-profit organization dedicated to preventing child abduction and trafficking.” From around November 2013 to February this year, Senese told victims he could recover their children and would work with the Delta Force of which he had been a member. He promised one parent of a child abducted to India that he could get the child back in a matter of weeks. He did the same with others.
News India Times spoke to several Indian-American parents, a couple of them Senese’s victims who did not want their names to be used. They forked out anywhere from $5,000 to $90,000 hoping Senese would bring their children back from India.
“This is exactly the problem we are facing. Parents think the government is not doing anyhting so let’s try private means,” Ravi Parmar, the father of an abducted child, told News India Times. He, along with numerous parents, is lobbying lawmakers and the State Department to put this issue at the top of their diplomatic agenda. Parmar is not among Senese’s victims.
Senese told one victim, who spoke to News India Times on condition of anonymity, that he started his organization because his own son had been abducted by his wife; that Delta Force helped him retrive his child; that Hillary Clinton had called him to thank him for his work; and that he had rescued several girls from Mexico. He brazenly did radio shows where he featured some of his victims. Another victim told this reporter he had come to realize Senese was a fraud early on and did not lose much money.
“As alleged, Peter Senese fed a pack of lies to desperate parents by telling them, among other things, that he and his company could, for a price, locate and recover their internationally kidnapped children,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said announcing his indictment.
Through his websites (www.stopchildabduction.org and www.petersenese.com) and elsewhere, Senese promoted his organization and claimed that “there have been many, many children of international parental child abduction who have been reunited and returned home due directly to the great efforts, financial, legal, and investigative resources” of I CARE.
Parents of children abducted to India say they have not seen their children for years and that efforts through the Indian judicial system had not borne fruit.
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